


Discount Creation Myth

by petalprose



Category: Homestuck
Genre: A Startling Disregard For The Circadian Rhythm, Canon Divergent, Don't copy to another site, Earth C (Homestuck), F/F, Gen, HSBB2019, Post-Canon, Pseudo-Camping, Written Pre-Epilogue, to a degree.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalprose/pseuds/petalprose
Summary: “Not fucking Christmas!” howls Roxy. Beside her, Dirk stage-deadpanswowto Callie, who is simply bewildered. “I am god damn tired of Christmas! Do you know how many years I waited for Santa to come? How many years I’ve had tobeSanta? Do you?Do you?”“Wait, c’mon, if the trolls are having troll Christmas why can’t we haveourChristmas?”Karkat bristles as soon as the sentence leaves John’s mouth. “Oh, so it’strollChristmas and nothumanTwelfth Perigee’s Eve?”“I have to agree with Karkat,” Terezi’s the closest Roxy has ever seen to frowning. “This may be a wriggler’s argument, but our planet and traditions did come first! And anyway, the name Twelfth Perigee’s Eve objectively makes more sense thanChristmas.”-In which Roxy Lalonde, brand-new God of Earth C, makes the first few animals of the planet and demonstrates her creativity with naming in the most high-effort Twelfth Perigee's present anyone has ever seen.





	Discount Creation Myth

Earth C was fresh, new, and idyllic. The landscape was littered with the chaos of its restoration, and when Roxy breathed in the air felt like _air._ Some of it might have had to do with John, but either way she loved everything about it. It was a bit much, honestly! Sixteen years in quarter-above-passable air, and then six months in… blank, static-y air, and now this! A reasonable dose of oxygen!

Her standards are low as hell, but at least it’ll make it easier for her to adjust to the new universe.

Speaking of!

“Rosey,” she says, dragging out the _sey_ , “Earth C’s such a, like, an _easy_ name!” There were probably better words to describe what she meant, but Roxy was lying down the wrong way on the couch and the blood rushing to her head was a bit disorienting. She should have been used to it by now, but during the six months of the Game Jane had made her want to at least _try_ to seem like she knew what normal societal conventions were. When their kid-parents showed up with all their chaos in tow, she hadn’t really had the chance to resume her bad sitting habits. And besides that, there was how the setting sun was shining right into her eyes... She should've moved the couch closer to the house for shade, but she'd reasoned that since it'd set soon enough, they shouldn't bother. Ah, hubris.

Beside her, Rose looks up from her husktop and raises a brow. “It’s just a placeholder, Roxy.”

“Yeah I know, but what’re we actually going to be callin’ it?”

“What would you like to call it?”

“Man, I dunno!” Roxy flops over on the couch. It doesn’t do much at all except make her regret it. “That’s why I asked you!”

“Hmm.” Rose looks back down at her husktop for a moment. “I don’t have anything in mind, myself. Naming a new planet is, as we should have expected, a difficult task.”

“Why’s it gotta be, though? Are there like, rules to namin’ stuff?”

“Not quite.” Rose shifts so her legs are folded beneath her. Roxy shifts so she doesn’t feel like her eyes are going to clip right out of her head. “If you discovered something entirely new, perhaps, like a comet, then you could name it after yourself.”

“Basically just, Halley’s comet. You mean. And Darwinism, and shit.”

Rose nods. “Yes, like Halley’s comet. Or Darwinism, or etcetera. Name something for its primary characteristics, its theme, what it means to you; there isn’t a limit. Or if there was, it’s pointless now.”

“All right, yeah, so then… What’s stopping us from just calling this planet a—what was that? An asshole jamboree?”

“Oh, I do think the name will be met with some resistance,” says Rose, with a startled hint of laughter. “Karkat in particular will probably try to bite your head off.”

“Davey would never let him do that to me,” Roxy sniffs. “And also no offense to Karkat but I could probably flip him over with zero effort.” She takes a moment to imagine it.

“I don’t doubt it.”

A gust of wind pushes some of Roxy’s hair into her mouth, and she spits it out with a _plegh._ They should probably move this couch inside, but the feeling of grass and soil—grass with chlorophyll!—kept her there. _“_ Aw, but asshole jamboree’s out of the question, I guess.”

“The future residents of this planet might have resented us for naming it such, anyway.”

“Oh, totally, but—how would they have known what an asshole was, Rose?” Roxy sits up. This is important enough for her full focus. She soldiers past the rush of blood. “How would they have known? Would we have left behind our chatlogs to be fuckin’, ancient text? Scripture?”

Rose is doing that thing where she looks like she’s trying to rein in a grin. She settles for a smile which squints her eyes up. “'Asshole’ might just have universally constant connotations.”

“But _why?_ ”

“What do you think they would have called their behinds, Roxy? Their buttocks? Their _derrières_?”

Roxy tips her head back and laughs. “I’ve got no fucking clue! But what—what, at what point in their history would they like, come up with the word _ass?_ How did _we_ come up with the word ass?”

“That is beyond my area of expertise,” says Rose, “And my maturity level.”

“Butthole would be perfectly fine!” insists Roxy, “They wouldn’t have to use ass!”

At _ass_ Rose’s controlled smile is pushed into honest laughter. Roxy takes a moment to revel in the sound.

They keep going back and forth for a while, going in circles and coming up with increasingly ridiculous ways to refer to an ass and by extension, an asshole. Kanaya eventually comes to tell them lunch is starting up.

* * *

The stars of this universe are…

Well, they’re not there. Yet. Or at least, their light isn’t visible from where they are yet.

Roxy knows it takes a couple million years or so for light from other stars to reach them, but the blankness of the sky reminds her whole lot of the game. It makes her impatient. And, hell, even in the game you could see the other planets in the distance, or if you were particularly unlucky you might catch a glimpse of a Horrorterror’s eye. Eyes. It just looks like a void, here, and not the way she’s familiar with. The Void, capital letter V, felt a lot more like possibilities than emptiness, and the sky here feels like anticipation and waiting all over again.

She kind of misses the constellations back at her old Earth. She pushes her food around absently, trying to make her own with it. Connect these two, draw a line between these… Looks like Dirk’s shades, ha. She glances up at him to confirm. _Yes,_ identical.

… Maybe this’ll end up as an actual constellation.

The crowd around the bonfire talk in low voices. No heavy topics, as far as Roxy can hear. After the first few days of disorientation, everyone either avoided or cornered the people they needed to talk to. Now it’s just… downtime. Calm before the storm, except Roxy hopes there won’t be a storm because she’s tired, and she knows everyone else is too, no matter how cheery or energetic they might seem.

“Do you think we’ll have the same constellations?” she asks absently.

She wasn’t really expecting an answer, but to her left, Dirk tips his head. “I don’t think so,” he says slowly. His pacing has improved, and it fills her chest up with pride. “This is an entirely new universe. Everything is bound to be different.”

Roxy huffs. “Damn.”

“But,” continues Dirk, scooping up some of his soup and letting it spill back into his bowl, “That means we can give them our own names. Think up new ones and call them something meaningful to us.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was doing,” says Roxy. She’s done with the finishing touches on her Anime Shades Food Based Constellation, so she presents it to Dirk with a flourish. “Behold, the constellation Nerdis Major.”

Dirk almost laughs. “Impressive. The name could use some improvement, however.”

“What? No way! This name is perfect!”

“It’s biased, Roxy. Without context, they wouldn’t know what it meant.” If Dirk let himself emote she knows he’d be grinning in the shit-eating kind of way. She can hear it in his voice, deadpan be damned. “Come on. I know you can do better than that.”

“Oh, too bad,” she says, “Because this is the best it’s gonna get, _nerd_.”

“I’m hurt. You’ve hurt me.”

“It’s the truth, Di-Stri, you can’t hide from it.”

“Incredible.” He takes some of the soup before continuing. “Is this the example you’re going to set for the mortals, Rox?”

He says mortals in an exaggerated sort of way, but she can tell the way he wavers at her name is more than just his speech difficulties. “Hey, I’m going to be the best god there is,” she says. “You’re going to have to step up your non-existent game, because I’ve already started on thinking about the new name for this planet.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I am absolutely not going to steal your godly spotlight. You can have mine, in fact.”

“Credit where credit is due!” says Roxy, jabbing her spoon at him. “ _Work where work is due._ You’re a teenage god, you get stuck with divine babysitting duty.”

“I’ll leave the kids in front of _Barney_ on a loop and escape through the kitchen window.”

“Joke’s on you, Dirk,” she says, “There ain’t no escape from babysitting duties. You’ll look down and find one of the little fuckers clinging right to your leg.”

“How would I not notice them?”

“Magic,” says Roxy. “ _Duh._ ”

Dirk tips the bowl and drinks straight from it. She can’t see because of his shades, but she just _knows_ he’s looking her right in the eyes. He’s making slurping sounds, the gross jerk.

“Of course,” he says, deadpan, withdrawing a handkerchief from god-knows-where and wiping at his mouth. “How could I have been so blind.”

“You’re wearing shades during nighttime,” says Roxy. “That might have something to do with it. Since when were you so fancy?”

“This?” he lifts up the handkerchief and raises a brow above his shades. She nods. “Roxy, you animal. This isn’t fancy, this is common etiquette.”

“Neither of us knew what common etiquette was.” _You threw it out the window slurping straight from the bowl._

“ _Au contraire_ ,” he says, _fancily,_ “I did. I just didn’t care. But three guesses as to who gifted me this.”

It’s kind of obvious, and the realization makes Roxy smile. “Aw, Dirk, you sap,” she says, socking him in the shoulder, “Janey’s gonna turn you into a civilized man before you ever get the chance to grunt ‘fire.'”

“Don’t think you’re exempt from this, Roxy, she’ll have you drinking sparkling water out of crystalline glasses with your pinky finger extended and you won’t even notice.”

He rubs at his shoulder as though he expects a bruise to form but she knows she hasn’t caused him any real harm. She snickers. “Anythin’ for our dearest Janey,” she says.

Dirk nods, ridiculously solemn. “Anythin’ for our dearest Janey,” he parrots, except he hasn’t got any of the life Roxy had put into saying it and _less_ life than usual, so he just sounds like a—a, uh, a… Ah, that one specific game Roxy used to have before Janey chucked it into the depths in disgust, where there was actually dialogue but it had either been corrupted or just been Made Like That because all the characters spoke in a really creepy monotone, like there was just one person behind their voices, like… like they were being mind controlled into saying exactly what they wanted…?

That was kind of a long metaphor for something which could have easily been expressed as ‘like he’d been mind controlled’. Guess she’s who Dave got most of his derail-y tangential tendencies from? Actually, hadn’t the game been made by him—

Jane’s voice is what drags her attention back to the conversation. “Dirk,” she says, nose all scrunched up in a way that makes Roxy want to squish her cheeks together, “That was just disturbing.”

“Aw, heiress, I see how it is,” says Roxy, at the same time Dirk says, “Is there no pleasing the bourgeoisie?”

Jane turns up her chin at them, raising her spoon to her mouth with her pinky extended. Roxy notes this with no small amount of delight. “How ghastly,” she sniffs, “I do not wish to associate with the peasants any longer. Johnathan! Take them away.”

Beside her, John blinks. “Uh,” he says. “After I finish my soup, milady.”

“Incredible! Have I no support from my own court? My Witch!”

Jade grins into her bowl. “Ah, your majesty,” she says, “I’m busy _drinking_ the potions at the moment, give me some time to brew more and I’ll turn these traitors to toads.”

John snorts and she shoves him with her elbow. He shoves back, and Roxy watches as they begin a short and pointy battle with only their arms. Jane reaches an arm around John to cut into the war, murmuring an admonishment whose effect diminishes with her smile.

“Hey,” Dave pipes up, “Resident Knight here, boss, I can take these plebeians on no sweat.” He makes a show of sizing Dirk and Roxy up.

Roxy squares her shoulders and pats Dirk on his, where they’ve tensed just the slightest bit. She’ll have to corner him later for an authentic Feelings Jam concerning his splinter, but for now…

“Davey, please,” she scoffs, “I’m not speaking for Dirk here, but personally, you would _not_ stand a chance against me.”

“In the interest of a fair fight,” says Rose, eyes alight with mischief and not at all because of the fire, “I feel as though I should inform Dave my mother, a version of Roxy, beat multiple ogres to death with her bare fists.”

“Good god,” mutters Karkat, through a mouthful of food, “all you humans really _are_ shitpanned.”

“I think it’s mostly just cultural differences,” says Kanaya, beside him. She gazes into her soup contemplatively. Rose, in comparison, gazes into her eyes lovingly, the sort of look one gets on their face when they know exactly the sort of batshit thing the object of their affections is going to say. “After all, Dave seemed quite horrified to learn of the zombies.”

“The fucking _what?”_ That’s _more than_ _batshit_. That’s the feces of an entirely new species of animal. Roxy leans forward too fast and too far, Dirk reaching to pull her back from the fire. His grip is noticeably slack, and so is Roxy’s grasp on reality. “The zombies? The—the _zombies?_ ” _We had zombies in the game but that was the_ game _?? Were they just fuckin’, chillin’ in parks—_

“Please,” interrupts Dad Crocker, a hint of amusement in his voice, “I don’t think this is a suitable topic for mealtime.”

“Oh, come on,” says Jane, and then, in chorus with John: “Dad.”

They look to each other. The rest of the circle looks to each other too, and then quiet down, because the aura of awkwardness the two of them are now emanating is infectious. Roxy doesn’t think she’d ever felt so much second-hand… second-hand. Second-hand something. She can’t identify what the feeling is, but she’s fine with that, because it’s not really any of her business. And it’s not like either Jane or John can identify it either, clearly.

When the silence breaks, a literal second later, it’s not by either of them. Instead, it’s by Jake, who—bless his damn heart—is apparently trying to singlehandedly salvage the conversation. “Gosh,” he says, too quickly to be mistaken as casual, “that sounds right interesting! Care to elaborate, uh…”

“Kanaya,” replies the troll in question. She smiles at him. Jake visibly relaxes. Roxy does, too, and as Kanaya begins talking about Alternia’s zombie epidemic, she mentally takes note that she should probably have a Feelings Jam with Jane too. Oh, hell, all four of them should.

And then afterward they’ll talk about how fucked it is that Alternia had zombies and that Karkat and Kanaya treat it as though it’s a normal fact of life. The sky’s blue, grass is green, we had actual fucking zombies on our planet and we don’t break a sweat about it.

Jesus.

* * *

It turns out everyone is either genuinely sleepy or they could sense her intent and chose to avoid it, but Roxy is not able to wrangle her friends together for a good and proper Feelings Jam. An hour after lunch and all of them already had something or other to do.

She relays this to Calliope, bemoaning.

“I swear, Callie,” she huffs, spread dramatically over the carpet, “I’m gonna get ‘em together for this if it kills me.”

“I would rather you didn’t, actually,” says Callie, threading a hand through Roxy’s hair absently. “It took an exponential amount of effort to get you through that mess.”

“Bluh, yeah, but listen.” Roxy sits up and looks Callie in the eyes. Callie looks back, bemused. “New universe, new beginnings, right? Come on, I don’t really wanna bring our old problems into the problems of makin’ this place all nice and livable.”

“I suppose it is a reasonable wish,” says Callie. She tilts her head to the side and smiles, tentative. She thinks she’s being discreet, placing her other hand just a centimeter from Roxy’s own, but she won’t comment on it. She can understand the hesitance, even if Callie’s left hand is literally playing with her hair at the same time. “But I think you should wait just a little longer, love. New universe, new beginnings, and brand new things to overwhelm you all.”

“I just want it to be a little easier,” says Roxy. Her shoulders slump as she takes Callie’s hand. “I think it _woulda_ been easier if you were there, honestly.”

“Pardon?”

Callie looks like she wants to outright challenge Roxy’s statement, and it makes her feel a little bit sad. For a moment she considers ripping a hole through Paradox Space so she can kick Caliborn’s ass. “It’s hard sayin’ no to you,” she says instead. “Since it’s been really apparent that all you want is to keep us safe.”

“Oh, well.” Callie looks down at their joined hands, mouth in an unsure line. “Thank you, Roxy, I really do appreciate it.”

“You know they wouldn’t have minded you being there.”

The unsure line morphs into a frown. “I know they wouldn’t have,” she says, voice soft, “But you all seemed like such a… close unit, and I couldn’t bear to, well, butt in.”

“You seemed to be getting along with the others just fine, though.”

Callie shakes her head. “That was right after the hectic rush of winning the Game. It felt like… We were all swept up in the rush of victory, and couldn’t help the sense of camaraderie which came with it.”

“Okay, sure, but you’ve been friends with Dirk and Jane and Jake and I for years. You could’ve stuck with us.”

“Yes, but I mean… You’re all related to each other. By your being human, I mean. And the trolls…”

Roxy raises a brow. “Intimidated by your idols?”

“I—no!” Callie’s head turns at lightning fast speed and she glares at Roxy half-heartedly. “Well! Not entirely. They’re… partners, with your descendants, aren’t they?”

“Dating, Callie?” Roxy considers this. “Rose and Kanaya totally are,” she says. “They were all over each other, and when Kanaya mentioned the zombies all off-hand like it didn’t even matter Rosey looked at her like she wanted to dip her old-school style and smooch her right there.”

“Oh,” says Callie, “That’s nice.”

“I’m not too sure about Dave and Karkat though, they haven’t said anything about it. Which is totally valid, they don’t got to have everythin’ figured out, ‘specially considerin’ the whole legitimate gods no matter how you look at it thing.” Roxy frowns. “Even if our paradoxkids don’t know you all too well, or have other people to talk to or whatever, you could’ve still talked to us.”

“I wasn’t too keen on taking your attention from your paradoxkids,” says Callie. She picks at Roxy’s nails. “I wanted you to talk with them without any threat hanging over your heads. And as I’d said, you all seemed to have more reason to want to speak to each other than to me. I felt quite a bit like an outsider.”

Roxy hums. She adjusts her hand so Callie can get at the nails easier, watching with mild amusement. “See,” she says, “All you want for us is for us to be safe.”

Callie flushes. “It’s only reasonable,” she mumbles.

“Yeah, well.” Roxy grins at her, soft around the edges. “You’re a superhero either way. Not an outsider, hear?”

“Oh, stop it,” Callie says, rolling her eyes and pushing at Roxy’s shoulder. Roxy laughs. “Don’t try to soften me up!”

“Aw, I know it’s working.” Roxy pushes back. “How was spendin’ time with Terezi? If we’re lucky you can drag her along with you to the next picnic.”

“Who says I’m coming along to the next picnic?”

“You says!”

Callie giggles, and _mission god damn accomplished!_ Roxy hopes Lord Shithead is rolling in his paradoxical grave. “Oh, all right,” says Callie, “You’ve convinced me, you dastardly rogue, I’ll come along.”

“Awesome!” Roxy slings an arm over her shoulders and jostles her. “I did kinda mean it, though. How was Terezi?”

“Ah,” says Callie. She pauses. “Miss Pyrope was… interesting, to put it delicately.”

“Interesting,” repeats Roxy. “Delicately?”

“Well, she started off by shaking out of her reverie, sniffing me, declaring I smelled like—a sour patch watermelon? Then returning to her contemplative haze.”

“Ah.” The mental image almost makes Roxy laugh. She holds back, but barely.

“We made some idle chat, but otherwise we hadn’t talked much,” Callie continues. “I asked her what her plans were, and she seemed to freeze up. She attempted to counter by asking me what _I_ was planning on doing, to buy herself some time, I suppose. I told her I had asked the question first, and she acquiesced.”

“What’d she say?”

Callie hesitates. “She said she was thinking about her friends,” she says. “The other trolls, the ones who didn’t make it. She thought it was unfair that Vriska was saved just to get left behind again. She’s thinking of looking for her.”

“Oh,” says Roxy, voice faint, “That’s. Some heavy shit.” She hadn’t known Terezi and Vriska well, TereziandVriska even less, but she’d gotten the impression that they were their own shade of pale for each other. Own shade of red. God. There is just no end to the repercussions, huh.

“Yes,” sighs Callie, moving to lean on Roxy, “It is. She had said it in an ambivalent way, but it was quite clear she was well and truly bothered by it.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine,” says Roxy, tilting her head to rest it on top of Callie’s. “It sucks that the trolls lost so many before getting here.”

“I suppose you humans are lucky in comparison.”

“…Yeah,” says Roxy, “I mean, shit, I dunno about lucky, but I sure as fuck got to keep _my_ friends.”

Roxy didn’t get to meet a guardian she never had, and neither did Dirk. Jake lost his grandmother as a toddler to an evil fucking witch, and Jane, the heiress to said witch, had to face at least one assassination attempt a day. But at the end of the day they still had each other; none of them had been lost.

…Well.

She doesn’t like to think of Lil Hal. It makes her sad, among a whole storm of emotions, so she’ll save those for when she feels better equipped to deal with them. He wasn’t Dirk, but he was someone, and he meant something to her, and now he’s gone. So if this is how she feels after having lost him, she can’t imagine what it’d feel like to lose the rest of her friends.

She can’t speak for the other group of kids, though, but it seems like Rose and Dave have come to terms with their feelings for their own parents—and from what she’d gathered, Dave’s Bro had been a real shitbag to him anyway. John’s found new family in Jane and her father, and even with the awkwardness of them both seeing the same man as their father despite being each other’s grandparent, they’re trying to work through it. Jade has a whole slew of problems, but she’s got the support of her friends to help her, and she and Jake can talk to each other about how the deaths of their respective guardians affected them.

Their group of friends had problems, but they managed to pull through. From what she knows, the trolls had lost their guardians, had fought and killed each other, barely ever getting closure.

She slouches and brings Callie down along with. “Man,” she says. “Guess I really did end up having a feelings jam.”

* * *

When she checks, it’s only just become one AM. Four hours since finishing up lunchtime with the campers, three since her Feelings Jam with Callie. Roxy’s nap is not going as well as she’d like. Probably had something to do with their sleep schedules forgoing the concept of time entirely.

She wants to do something, but she hasn’t got any clue what it is she wants to do. She ends up just rolling around and contorting herself into ridiculous positions to try and fall asleep. Predictably, none of this works. With a huff, she rolls onto her back…

And thinks. God damn, look what she’s reduced to. At least if she closes her eyes she can imagine the stars that should be there when she opens them.

She considers messaging Terezi and discards the notion. She hasn’t talked to the troll much and thus doesn’t know her well enough to justify the sudden interest, despite her attempts to make friends with her. Well, she _could_ try to talk to her about how her alternate self managed to bully John into saving the timeline, but she thinks that wouldn’t really be a good topic, even for a lead-in to her concerns. Considering what Callie had told her earlier, Roxy’s pretty confident in assuming that she should give the troll her space. When she seems up for it Roxy’ll try to talk to her, though. Or maybe ask the other trolls to. They’re winners of the Game, too. Literally the _least_ they should be is happy.

She pushes herself into a roll and lands on the ground. The room is empty but for her—Callie had woken from her own nap early, and Dirk isn’t one to take naps.

Roxy uses her void powers to hide herself when she leaves, and sets off into the night. She’s going on a walk. Observe their new playground, plan, all that godly shit. Watch the sunrise, too. Hell yes.

Watching the sunrise isn’t a new habit, but she hadn’t gotten the chance to in the Medium and this is a whole new star to stare at. Gonna make it burn brighter with a blush with how much attention she’s giving it.

Come to think of it, they haven’t come up with a name for the new sun either. Roxy kicks a rock out of her path absently. Calling it just ‘sun’ would be kind of too easy, like she had said about calling the new planet ‘Earth C’ earlier, and it felt kind of mean to give everything Earth-centric names while the trolls and Callie were there. Soleil sounds like a cool name, though—but, yeah, that one troll dude was named Sollux, wasn’t he? Sollux something.

Sollux Castor. No, that’s not right… Sollux. Copter? No, but it’s almost there…

tipsyGnostalgic began pestering  grimAuxilliatrix

TG: hey kan what was the name of ur troll friend

TG: mustardy gemini dude

GA: His Name Is Sollux Captor If I Am Thinking Of The Right Person

GA: But Then Again There Arent Many People We Know That Fit The Description Of Mustardy And Troll

GA: Why Do You Ask

GA: In Fact Why Are You Pestering Me If I May Pose My Own Query

GA: I May Be Wrong But You Did Tell Everyone You Would Sleep Didnt You

TG: yea im gonna b goin back to my nap in a bit just wanted 2 clear my head

TG: and that was bothering me too so

TG: thnx!

GA: No Problem

GA: You Know You Can Message Me Any Time Youd Like

TG: yea ik

TG: i got the best future sis in law evr :’))

GA: W

GA: What

GA: Future Sis In Law

TG: ;))))

tipsyGnostalgic ceased pestering  grimAuxilliatrix

Well, that solves that mystery. She shoves her phone back into the pocket of her pajama pants.

Okay, so the dude’s name is Sollux Captor. She’d gotten pretty close. Roxy isn’t sure what he’d think of naming the star something so similar to his own name, so she’ll place Soleil in the tentative _maybe_ category.

Naming it ‘Star’ would probably get a laugh out of Dave, but Roxy feels like that would be mean to it, however irrational the feeling may be. It’s just been born, technically, and she kind of wants to call it something meaningful.

Her brows have furrowed without her realizing. Easing her expression, Roxy looks up from the ground and glances at her surroundings. If she’s spent this long thinking of a new name for their star and come up with nothing, she can’t even begin to think about the headaches naming the rest of the universe will bring. Naming the _universe itself!_ She’s sure there will be arguments and debates all around once everyone else begins to think of it. If they ever manage to settle on a name it’ll be Christmas come early.

…Oh, geez, _Christmas._ Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Valentines, all the other holidays, all the ones she and Dirk had never had any real reason to celebrate but did anyway as a tribute to a civilization that only lived on in electronic fragments and waterlogged rubble. As an attempt to bond with Jane and Jake, feel closer to them instead of years in the future. Don’t the trolls have their own equivalents? Will they have to come up with new names for _those,_ too? Are they going to have to restructure their calendar?

Maybe they shouldn’t keep them. Weren’t Christmas and Hanukkah religion-based holidays? Yeah, but shit, wouldn’t it be disrespectful for them to just discard—

She kicks another rock. This is starting to give her a headache.

When she thinks on it, she kind of just wants the sense of friendship those holidays always seemed to harbor.  All the sick gifts are a plus, too. She’ll… Suggest keeping the gift-giving part, if nothing else. Always seemed like a real important aspect. Certainly did, when Jane kept insisting as such.

Her mind wanders to Halloween when she spots the exact same rock she’d kicked earlier in front of her again. Same shape and everything. It’s ridiculous, but she thinks ‘ _Huh_ ,’ and then ‘ _spooky_ ,’ and then she regrets the development of thought and the internet, because _spooky_ quickly starts up a tune in her brain and automatically supplies _scary skeletons._ As metaphorical shivers run down her metaphorical spine Roxy curses humanity and the parts of their culture they chose to save and leave behind.

The ode to Halloween haunts her even as minutes pass and she’s turned around to head back to the housecamp. It won’t let up. This is when Roxy gets a brilliant idea that will almost definitely end in some sort of disaster:

“Halloween and Christmas crossover,” she mumbles. She speeds up, beginning to run back to base. She’s got to tell someone, and not through text, but in person. She wants to take as many holidays as possible and cram them all into one event. Valentines, Hanukkah, St. Patricks! April Fools! Holi! _Nothing is safe._

She trips on the rock on the way back.

* * *

As it turns out, the trolls only have an immediate equivalent for more Christian holidays like Christmas or Valentine’s.

Roxy finds this outrageous.

“Are you _kidding me?_ ” she gripes, “I thought all the similarities were just the Batterwitch finding amusement in those specific holidays, or something!”

“Oh, you knew about them?” Kanaya raises a brow. “You knew about our obscure holidays but had no idea of the existence of our zombies?”

“Yeah, well,” says Dirk, a placating hand on Roxy’s shoulder, “When we were thirteen we tried to find out everything we could about the Condesce. Wasn’t much in the end, but we did find out about some of your holidays. Saw absolutely jack and shit about your zombies, so I guess that says something about her priorities.”

Kanaya hums. “Well, it’s reasonable, I suppose. As reasonable as the Condescencion could possibly be. As far as I remember,” she adds, “Karkat’s ancestor had been similar to this Christ of yours, so that’s probably why only those holidays had overlapped.”

“Oh,” says Roxy. That… makes sense, she supposes. Karkat had been the one to make their paradoxparent’s universe, after all.

“So then,” Dirk says, “Twelfth Perigee’s Eve and Flushed Affirmation Day are the only Alternian holidays with Earth equivalents?”

“They were not quite holidays, but yes, as far as I am aware.” Kanaya pauses. “May I ask why the sudden curiosity?”

Dirk shrugs and looks to Roxy, leaving the stage to her. She clears her throat. “I was thinkin’ of havin’ one huge celebration,” she says, injecting as much grandeur into her voice as possible. “Start the new universe off and the godly processes with a bang, all festive-like, and all that.”

“She wanted to mash every public holiday into one event and hope for the best,” says Dirk.

“Well! If you’ve _absolutely_ gotta say it like that,” Roxy huffs. “You gotta give it some flair, Dirk, sell the idea.”

“If I remember correctly, I’m a Prince, not a salesman.”

“Well then _get ready to improv!_ ”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Kanaya cuts in, an amused tilt to her lips. “I’m already convinced.”

“So you _agree,_ ” says Roxy, excitedly, “You’ll help convince the others?”

“I don’t see why not,” says Kanaya. With a shrug, she adds, “It should be fun.”

“Yes!” Roxy rounds on Dirk and points a finger at the sky, grinning. “Order a bonfire! _Let the meeting commence!_ ”

“According to the position of the nonexistent stars in the sky and also my phone, Roxy, it’s only about two hours until dinner,” says Dirk. “Wait until then, and maybe come up with a better pitch.”

* * *

Roxy’s sitting on the rightmost part of the log, Calliope beside her and worrying her lip.

Roxy pushes at her shoulder gently. “Hey,” she mumbles, as graceful as she can manage with food stuck to her teeth, “Somethin’ wrong?”

Callie doesn’t comment on the food on Roxy’s teeth. Whether it’s because she doesn’t care or she wants to spare whatever dignity Roxy thinks she has remains to be seen. “I asked Terezi to come to dinner,” she says. "Or breakfast. Or whatever this meal would be to her."

Roxy hums.

“I dunno if she’s gonna come, but the sunrise might sweeten the deal for her. Who knows.”

“The sunrise?”

“Oh, y’know.” Callie does not know and the look on her face conveys as much. Roxy continues. “Her whole… Tastin’ colors thing?”

“The colors would still be the same, they’d—Oh, how do I say this…” Callie looks away from Roxy for a moment, then brightens. “Right! Well, why would light affect the taste of colour? It would still be the same shade regardless, it would just be perceived differently.”

“ _Uh_ ,” says Roxy, because Dirk is heading their way and she doesn’t want to get dragged into a conversation on something that’s inevitably going to take a turn for the existential at 5AM in the fucking morning. “That’s—you’re right, good point.”

“What’s a good point?” Dirk sits down beside Callie. His bowl has been refilled with ramen broth. Roxy wonders for a moment how he can stand the taste after having to deal with it for so long until Dirk offers the bowl to Callie, who takes it with a smile and a chirp of _thank you!_

“Your shades,” Roxy says, before Callie gets the chance to clue Dirk in. “They’re a safety hazard.”

“We’re all safety hazards, Roxy.”

Roxy raises a brow at him. Glances pointedly at Callie and the Nannas.

“Calliope owns a fucking gun and the Nannas are basically Jane except older and presumably more experienced in wreaking havoc.”

Okay, yeah, Roxy can’t argue against that. She would maybe have managed to come up with a counterargument, but out of the corners of her eyes she sees Terezi walk up to the pastries and grab them one by one.

_She came,_ Roxy thinks, and all other thoughts are drowned out by the mild fascination elicited by bearing witness to Terezi Pyrope, Seer of Mind, shoveling multiple mini cupcakes down her gullet.

Callie’s noticed her, too, from the look on her face.

The rest of dinner passes without incident—well, _catastrophic_ incident. Roxy stands up and whaps her bowl as hard as she can when the sun’s up enough that everyone can see each other without the fire’s help.

“All right!” she hollers, still hitting the bowl, “Listen up, guys, I’ve got a fuckin’ a _nnouncement_ to make!”

The crowd doesn’t do something as satisfying as snap to attention the moment they hear her raise her voice, but they do eventually quiet down. Roxy clears her throat and launches into her Super Effective Godly Pitch™.

She’d spent a chunk of the time waiting for dinner thinking over how she was going to present it, but when it comes down to it, all that comes out of her mouth is: “Holiday Party. Any suggestions?”

There are more questions than suggestions, initially. While Roxy is detailing what she’d learned about their overlapping holidays from Kanaya, Jake raises his hand. Roxy pauses to focus on him and notes that Jade’s holding his arm in place by his elbow.

“Roxy, not that I don’t think that that’s a wonderful idea, but I think doing all of them at once would get to be overwhelming?”

“Oh, well—I mean, yeah,” Roxy shrugs. “This is really just a sorta base plan, y’know? To, like, garner some interest, an’ all.”

“Well, we’re interested,” says Rose. She looks pointedly around the group, and by pointedly, Roxy means that everyone else seems to physically feel her gaze poke into them.

There’s a chorus of agreement.

Roxy beams. “That’s _great,_ ” she says. “So! I’m open to suggestions! Open forum starts right the fuck now, in fact.”

A pointed cough from Jane. “Could it wait until after we clear the dishes, Roxy?” She raises her empty plate and a brow.

“Oh—yeah, ‘course. But you better get your umbrellas ready ‘cause we’re gonna be fuckin’ _brainstorming!_ ”

* * *

They do brainstorm, but umbrellas aren’t needed.

“Yeah, fuck that,” Karkat says, almost immediately after Jade’s finished listing all the holidays she knows.

Jade levels a glare at him and he adds, hastily, “I mean, we’re barely managing regular schedules as it is—don’t think I don’t know you humans are diurnal, I _made your fucking species,_ lest we forget.”

“And?” says Dave.

Karkat scoffs. “ _And?_ You can’t honestly expect to plan an event as fucking complicated as this without inevitable disaster being built into it. The catastrophe would be laid in the minutia by the sole virtue—nay, _misfortune,_ of us being the planners, don’t even try to deny it.”

Roxy sighs. “That’s the basis of this whole idea, though,” she says.

“Yeah, I—I get that, just. I don’t know, keep it to a reasonable amount of holidays?”

“What would a _reasonable_ amount of holidays even _be?”_ John snorts.

“Hell if I know!”

“But, _Karkat_ ,” says Terezi, sounding like she’s savoring the taste of his incredulity, “You’re the creator of their universe. Shouldn’t you have to know by default?”

Karkat’s tone is flat and unimpressed. “Some attitude you’ve got to the apparent omniscient fucker who created a universe.”

“This is the same attitude I adopt toward every supposedly-omniscient fucker who creates a universe,” says Terezi. “Observe.”

“So!” says Jake, loudly, leaning forward as Terezi reaches behind him to yank at John’s hood, “So, reasonable amount of holidays, was it? I do believe two is more than reasonable.”

Roxy considers him. “Two?”

“Well, yeah?” he pauses. “Maybe three? One for us humans, one for the trolls, and one for Calliope.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d have anything to add,” says Calliope. “My planet had a grand population of one body and two people, so you could imagine it wasn’t really a good basis for sustaining a culture.”

“Oh. Right.”

The plan slowly trudges toward finalization from there. Jane is, to Roxy’s mild surprise, the first to agree with Jake’s suggestion.

“It falls into the manageable category,” she'd said, all stiffness and diplomacy. “Having one event each would be easier to plan for and organize than two each.”

They wrap it up. The trolls have the smaller population, so they vote on their holiday first.

“Well, definitely nothing from the Church,” says Kanaya.

“Fuck that,” agrees Terezi. “How’s Crowning Day work?”

“Crowning Day? We got the fucking Empress killed and you want to celebrate _Crowning Day?_ ”

Terezi shrugs at Karkat. “We killed her, so now we get to do whatever we want with it.”

“Let’s put that suggestion in the ‘too-soon’ box,” says Kanaya.

They settle on Twelfth Perigee’s Eve. Karkat has a problem with this, like he had had with every other occasion they’d suggested.

“Twelfth Perigee’s Eve—“ He glowers at Kanaya and Terezi in succession. They meet him with gazes of equal force, Kanaya’s one of aggressively false tranquility and Terezi’s one that could easily classify as an irritant. He glowers at them some more to combat it. “Do neither of you remember the unmitigated goddamn disaster the last Eve we cobbled together was?”

“It was entirely—“

Kanaya slaps a palm over Terezi’s mouth. She smiles serenely at Karkat, fangs visible. “If you are referring to the Secret Sufferer exchange, we’re older and more experienced with not accidentally killing each other now,” she says. “We won’t blow up a friend this time.”

Beside Roxy, Dirk stills. “What the fuck,” he mumbles. Roxy agrees. _What the fuck_ indeed.

The humans, predictably, spark a much larger argument.

“Not fucking Christmas!” howls Roxy. Beside her, Dirk stage-deadpans _wow_ to Callie, who is simply bewildered. “I am god damn _tired_ of Christmas! Do you know how many years I waited for Santa to come? How many years I’ve had to _be_ Santa? Do you? _Do you?_ ”

“Wait, c’mon, if the trolls are having troll Christmas why can’t we have _our_ Christmas?”

Karkat bristles as soon as the sentence leaves John’s mouth. “Oh, so it’s _troll_ Christmas and not _human_ Twelfth Perigee’s Eve?”

“I have to agree with Karkat,” Terezi’s the closest Roxy has ever seen to frowning. “This may be a wriggler’s argument, but our planet and traditions _did_ come first! And anyway, the name Twelfth Perigee’s Eve objectively makes more sense than _Christmas._ ”

“Yeah, what sort of name is that?” Karkat looks like he’s gearing up for a righteous tirade. “Christmas? Sounds like you just threw a bunch of letters together and hoped for the best. What, did your forefathers look into alphabet soup for guidance, or something? Did you have fucking toddler oracles?”

“Karkat, you’re technically _the_ forefather, you don’t get to—“

“Watch me, Jade,” says Karkat. “Christmas sounds like someone tried to name a kid and sneezed halfway. Christmas sounds like you tried to give directions but got run over in the process. Christmas—“

Dave interrupts him, seeming almost delighted. “Okay, shit, if you’re gonna lay waste to Jesus Christ himself at least do it properly—“

“ _Christmas is out of the list_ ,” says Jane’s father, who Roxy abruptly remembers raised a child in a quaint suburban neighborhood in Washington.

Easter is suggested and quickly shot down. Thanksgiving is only given a single moment of consideration, seeing as almost half the present humans barely had a grasp on it.

(“But what are you giving thanks _for?_ ” asks Jade, sounding ridiculously haunted.

Jake thinks on it. “In most of the movies I’d seen, they were being grateful for time spent with family?”

They raise brows at each other. Roxy locks eyes with Dirk and then Calliope. Only Jane and John seem to be the type of people who would celebrate it in earnest.)

“How does Halloween sound?” suggests Dad Crocker, after an unsubtle glance at the trolls.

_Spooky scary—_

“Halloween!” Roxy launches herself to her feet in a desperate bid to escape the skeletons. “Fuck yeah, Halloween!”

She can see Dirk and Callie startle in her peripheral. She makes the executive decision to ignore them.

“Halloween,” parrots Rose, amused. “Fuck yeah. Any objections?”

* * *

“Halloween, Halloween, Hallo _ween,”_ Roxy mutters, pacing along the room. From their respective beds Dirk and Callie observe her. “Halloween. Hallo—“

“Roxy,” says Dirk. “What are you doing.”

“I’m thinking, Di-Stri, and you’re breathing too loud for me to focus.”

“Are you worried about this?” asks Calliope, curious, lying on her front with her head on her hands. “You seemed really enthusiastic when Mr. Crocker suggested it.”

“'Really enthusiastic’ is an understatement,” says Dirk. “Wanted to get on his good side, Rox?”

“First of all, no. Second of all, have you seen that man? Every damn side is a good side.” Roxy shakes her head. “Trick or treat?”

There’s no response. Hesitantly, as though approaching a rabid animal, Callie asks, “Is that a question?”

“Yeah, kinda?”

“Treat?”

“Hmm.”

Dirk huffs in amusement. “'Hmm’?”

“Yeah, _hmm,_ ” says Roxy.

The vaguest of ideas begin to form when Callie sits up and the flowery design on her shirt shows clear.

* * *

Daylight isn’t the best medium for sneaking around, and so Roxy spends most of the afternoon in bed trying to come up with a plan. Callie sleeps with her mouth open and the sheets kicked off in the bed next to her, and she can see Dirk put his legs up in the air every few minutes.

She watches this for a good half hour. Callie turns over to face Dirk. Dirk’s legs go down. Dirk’s left leg goes back up. Roxy scratches an errant itch. The overhead fan turns, ever toiling. She reaches for the meaning of life. A chair in the wall opposite the door seems to slowly migrate to Callie's bed. The warm tint to the room beckons to her, calls her name. Roxy is still not any closer to figuring out how she can slip away without her absence being noticed when Dirk raises his right leg.

“Roxy, I’ve been wondering when you were going to call me out on this, but now I’m just concerned for the both of us.”

She jolts out of her bed.

“ _Strider,_ ” she hisses, hands halfway around a gun that isn’t actually there, “What the _hell._ ”

“What’s got you staring at my legs like you’re trying to lazer fry them?”

Roxy makes to argue, pauses, and rolls onto her back to glower at the ceiling. She sighs, pushing all her aggravation into it. “I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah, I got that.” His leg drops, without ceremony. She wonders if it’s gotten all static-y. “Sleeping during the day tends to do that. Beating an incomprehensible, all-encompassing game whose sentience is entirely plausible also tends to do that.”

“Never having any grasp on a circadian rhythm tends to do that,” Roxy adds. “Living without a sun for six months tends to do that.”

“Being in a new universe with a new sun tends to do that.”

“Living with nocturnal aliens whose former Empress used to be your mortal enemy tends to do that.”

“Roxy,” says Dirk. “While this has been a good source of low effort entertainment, I _do_ want to know why you’re still up. You’re usually out like a light at this hour.”

There’s a joke Roxy could make here, but yeah, she’s actually sleepy. Also, she doesn’t want to meet Dirk’s sincerity with a meme. Just…

Fuck it. El-em-ay-oh. She’s sleepy and desperate. “If I wanted to, like, slip away all on my lonesome—without any of y’all finding out, how’d I go about it?”

There’s a pause before Dirk answers. “I was going to ask you why you would _ask,_ if you didn’t want anyone to find out, but. I am simply baffled. I am _perplexed_. You have done what none other before you has managed; you have left me utterly speechless, flummoxed. _Roxy_.”

He doesn’t continue. Roxy frowns. “What?”

“Roxy, you’re a god of void.”

“Yeah, and?” No response. Roxy squints at him over Calliope. Still no response; she squints some more.

“Son of a fuck,” says Roxy, after a good few seconds of squinting. She groans, embarrassed. “I’m gonna sleep. I can’t be _lieve_ I didn’t think of it sooner.”

She covers her head with her pillow in a weak attempt to drown out Dirk’s laughter.

* * *

Day one of her super awesome gift-planning starts the day after figuring out how to begin with day one of her super awesome gift-planning.

Roxy spends a good chunk of after-her-bedtime looking around for some Dinsey-esque perfect circle of trees, maybe with a convenient rock for sitting on, light filtering through the leaves in a way that leaves her under a natural spotlight...

In the end, she settles for a small clearing that barely manages to classify as a clearing. She plops her ass down on a conveniently placed rock, conveniently placed because she'd pulled it out of the void and placed it there, and gets to brainstorming.

She does not have any concrete thought before doing so. She simply thinks. Devotes all her brainpower into thinking. She comes out of it, thirty seconds later, with the thought that maybe she should get an idea of what she should be brainstorming _about_.

Shit, and in her excitement she’d forgotten the most important thing!

“Oh, man,” Roxy mumbles, making a notepad and pencil drop from the void and into her hands, “What would Calmasis—no, what would _Fefeta_ do if she saw you now?”

The answer is, of course, be a supportive friend and an overwhelmingly positive source of motivation. But Fefeta is, to Roxy’s deep regret, not here, so she’ll have to make do.

“Oookay,” Roxy taps on an empty page, “Ideas, ideas… You wanna take a page from Janey’s book, do somethin’ Life-y, but handing everyone a boquet’s kinda, a bit, uh… Out Of The Question, as the kids say—“

Roxy starts off small, because really, if she'd started off trying to pull a cat from the void and ended up with a Mutie or _worse_ , she thinks she might actually cry. Sure, she'd pulled the Matriorb into existence, but that was different, and also it was a high-stress situation. So. Yeah, she starts off slow; tries pulling magnolia seeds out of the void first, mushrooms, the like.

She forms a lilac flower— just the flower, once she's decided to graduate from seeds, and completely loses her productivity and spends the rest of her energy to figuring out how to keep it alive. She gifts it to Calliope when she returns to the tent that afternoon.

“Oh, Roxy, thank you—where did you find it, though?” Callie tucks it into her shirt and beams at her, grateful. “I’ve done my fair share of looking around, and I hadn’t seen a flower like this.”

“I have my ways,” says Roxy, trying to adopt an air of mystery.

She gives Callie most of the flowers she makes over the week, not willing to deal with questions from anyone else she could give them to. She'd accidentally made a neon purple amaryllis once, though— that one makes its way down the front of Dirk's shirt after he'd commented on it.

* * *

Week two starts off with Roxy glaring at the ground in front of her until she gets the tiniest ladybug she'd ever seen (though really, it's the only ladybug she'd ever seen i-r-goddamn-l, not from a computer screen) to pop and drop onto a pebble.

Everything seems to still. Roxy stares down at the ladybug. The ladybug, presumably, stares up at Roxy.

"Holy shit," she breathes, wide-eyed, "Holy _shit!_ "

She scoops the ladybug onto her palm. It's—it's about the right colour, Roxy thinks, red with black spots, and— it walks about on its tiny, tiny legs, and a tiny, tiny tear slips out of Roxy's eye. It is quickly followed by more until Roxy is on her side, openly crying, as the ladybug makes it way up her arm.

"Yo, _omg,_ " she laughs. Maybe Janey got the better deal, being saddled with Life. "I'm gonna name y'all as, like, a gift to myself. Gonna name you  _after_ myself, shit. Troll Christmas come early, god damn."

It stops on her nose. Roxy sneezes.

The days fly by after that, and ladybug turns to beetle turns to butterfly turns to earthworm, turns to—

She shrieks at the flying cockroach. It whizzes toward her head, probably to do something about being so rudely pulled into existence. Roxy pulls a very un-godly maneuver to get out of its path, scrambling backward, completely forgetting how to use her powers.

It alights atop her head. Roxy goes very, very still, fear taking hold of her.

"Uh," she says, except she doesn't actually because the word cracks and falls into sad little pieces halfway out her mouth. She tries again. "Uh," she says. Score! Bold with the success of the syllable she makes to demand the cockroach leave from its perch atop her hair. She fails at this, too, and spectacularly so; the cockroach skitters straight into the hood of her jacket and Roxy just about loses it. And her voice, what with the screaming that immediately follows.

She's good at dealing with these assholes, usually! It’s not like she had anybody to come and kill them for her, back at Earth. Well—Dirk probably would have, actually, for the ‘ironies’. Just, fly halfway across the world, yeet a cockroach into the horizon, look at her and nod all coolkid-like and promptly fuck off himself.

Unfortunately for her, Dirk had not been available then and she certainly can't get him now, so she has to make do.

She yanks her jacket over her head, _completely_ forgetting about its zipper in her haste, and drops it onto the ground. She does this with no small amount of care, of course! Cockroach or not, it's an animal, and one she created at that. She still whips her hand to her chest as soon as she's let go. “Okay, fuckwings McMike,” she says, bringing her hands in front of her, “You ready to calm down yet? Hmm? Need some more time in the time-out hoodie?”

It crawls out in answer. And keeps crawling, to Roxy’s relief. Yeah, see? She made do. She'll just have to deal with spending the rest of the morning in her pajamas.

When Roxy comes back to her room, jacket slung over her shoulder, Dirk is already up. He's seated on his bed and tapping at his phone in a horribly awkward position. Roxy's getting neck pains just looking at him.

“Hey,” he greets, not looking up from his phone. “Just so you know, Rose almost flew off the handle earlier when you started screaming. I fell with an absolutely disgusting lack of grace from my bed when she burst in looking for you.”

“Oh, shit.” She’d kind of… forgotten about the whole. _~Secret Mission~_ thing. What with the cockroach on a warpath straight for her eyes. She’s certain Dirk’s lying about falling off the bed, too—probably he’d gone straight into ninja mode. “Sorry. What’d you tell her?”

“Oh, I didn’t have to tell her anything,” says Dirk. “Calliope woke up then and very sleepily declared that you’d gone out to explore.”

“And that was enough for her?” Roxy throws her jacket into the air. It lands on the chair which had been migrating toward Callie's bed. She makes a mental note to move it.

“Of course not. Callie was halfway into passing back out. I just agreed with her and added that you could cleave any dumbass that tried to get you in half with your pinky finger if you wanted.”

“Can’t see why the hell I’d ever want to do _that,_ specifically, but thanks.” Roxy flops down onto her bed.

Dirk looks up from his phone. “Why _were_ you screaming, by the way?”

“Cockroaches.”

“Ah. Right.” Dirk nods and turns his attention back to his phone.

“…You’re just not gonna. Question that? Like, at all?”

“Roxy, please. Review our lives up ‘till this point and tell me. What god damn right do I have to be fazed by a cockroach that shouldn’t exist.”

* * *

About half a month since Roxy’s started on making animals out of the void, and all she’s gotten up to is making small insects. The deadline’s looming over her, though, so when she sits down on her Conveniently Placed Rock™ that morning, she decides to suck it up and move on to the next animal on her list.

“All right,” Roxy mutters to herself, shaking her hands out, “It’s just gonna be a duckling, babe, you can do this. You’ve got this in the bag. It’s not gonna be too hard; just. A couple ‘f feathers, and then you’re done…”

She cups her hands in front of her chest. They’re still shaking. God, she shouldn't be so nervous— she'd been successful so far, there's no way she'd mess up _now._ “Voidy thing don’t fail me now, voidy thing don’t fail me now—this is the Home Run, boys, the Last Fuckin’ Stretch, all we gotta do is yank a little dinosaur from the depths of absolutely fuck-all—“

Wait. Wait, not a dinosaur, lmao haha, she means a _duck,_ she means a _duck—_

…ling. A duckling. It appears onto the material plane and Roxy’s hands with a _pop_ , and funnily enough, Roxy can’t seem to keep her arms up any longer. Maybe she’d made a mistake and the little ball of feathers is about ten tons heavier than it should be.

The duckling begins quacking at her. She stares at it. _Quack,_ it quacks at her, imploring, and Roxy tries valiantly hard not to pass out.

It’s as yellow as Rosey’s Seer outfit and as fluffy as Roxy’s pillow. She loses her mind—to borrow from Dirk, she flies off the handle, the handle in this case being the ground.

“Oh my god!” says Roxy, voice high and cracking. The duckling’s distress level seems to be directly proportional to how high Roxy goes. She settles back down onto the ground, slowly, sinking into a kneel. “Omg, _look at you!_ Oh my god!”

It doesn’t stop quacking, even as Roxy nigh keels over. “I think I’m going to cry,” she continues, laughing, “I think I’m gonna cry. I’m crying. _Oh my god._ ”

She wheezes. The duckling quacks. “You are _so cute_ ,” she says, voice still pitched high.

Okay, she can’t just… keep calling it ‘the duckling’. That’d be an injustice. She sets it on the ground and nearly falls over again, watching it startle at the feeling of grass and begin exploring. “Don’t wander off too far,” she says.

It does not quack in return, too focused on the ground. Roxy does not notice, too focused on pulling her phone out.

“Okay, gew-goll,” she mutters, gently herding the duckling back toward her with her foot as she types, “Latin. For. Roxy, created, me. Go.”

She frowns down at her screen, switching the languages until her initial phrase is lost forever, and tries again. She tries out  _I was made by Roxy,_ changes her mind, returns to  _Roxy Created Me;_ once she's finally satisfied, the duckling is settled in the middle of her crossed legs.

She considers it, putting her phone back into her pocket. “How’s _Roxy Creavit Me_ sound for ya?” she asks, “Sounds clunky, ik, but it’s a new universe so I can make up whatever rules I want, and that means three word scientific names instead of two.”

It stares up at her. Bonks its little beak at her hand.

“Right,” Roxy says, pretending that there isn’t a lump in her throat. “Okay. Roxy creavifuckit it is.”

It is then that Roxy runs into a problem. How is she supposed to keep little Creavit (nickname a work in progress!) safe and unseen by the others? She can’t just captchalogue him—for one, her sylladex isn’t meant to hold living creatures, and two, she doesn’t want to risk startling him when she takes him out.

She shifts so that her legs form an awkward fence around Creavifucker as he walks on the grass. “Where d’ya think, Crevs?” she leans back on her hands. Stops leaning back on her backs. Brushes a pebble out of the way. Leans back on her hands once more. “Think you can handle learnin’ to fly?”

Haha, yeah, right. As though Roxy is willing to suffer actual literal Empty Nest Syndrome.

“Hey, Roxy Junior,” she says, resting her head on her hand, “what d’you say to getting some siblings?”

This time, Roxy the Second quacks back, in what Roxy takes the liberty to assume is enthusiasm. She grins at him.

“All right, kiddo, watch this.” She moves so that she’s kneeling, bringing her hands in front of her the same way she had earlier when making Roxulius Caesar. A moment of concentration, and then another duckling pops into her hands, almost identical to Roxy II: The Electric Boogaloo, except…

“Oh, geez.” she frowns at the duck. The electric blue duck. “Sorry ‘bout your feathers, but, uh… New universe, new rules?” she nods to herself as she sets him down next to The Second Coming of Roxy. “Yeah. This is totally cool. You’re cool.”

* * *

The days pass. Roxy makes a fence and, after a quick google search, some food for the ducklings. After an equally quick look around, she settles the animals near a pond.

She moves on from ducklings and starts on making a platypus, absolutely Not because of a certain cartoon, and when she’s managed the platypus (“I think having all of your scientific names be _Roxy Creavit Me_ wouldn’t be like, scientifically sound, or whatevs, but y’know. It’s true, ain’t it?") she moves on to seagulls, and then a hummingbird, and wow, it’s getting kind of hard to hide them.

“Shit,” she mumbles, setting up an awkward perimeter so the birds don’t fly into discovery. “Shoulda just started with. Not flying animals.”

The first not flying animal she tries to pop from the void is a tiny turtle, and then a fish, and then—holiest of shits, a _bear_.

“Okay, fuck, I have _got_ to fuckin’ work on this,” she grouses, wrangling it into a red shirt. “God. I was thinking of a fucking dog. Y’know, a puppy? A—An, I don’t know, a German Shepherd?”

Germany doesn’t exist anymore. Augh. Are they going to have to rename it? What the hell are they going to rename it? What the hell are they going to do about the _shepherd_ part, none of them are shepherds.

These questions have to wait until Roxy’s got this situation under control _._ And anyway, _Roxy Creavit Me_ works well enough as a catch-all. They _were_ all created by her. Another point to go into the 'Roxy is an absolute Genius' pile.

The bear is surprisingly receptive to being gently placed in a probably comically ineffectual fenced area. Roxy counts this as an absolute success. And then, with sudden, overwhelming horror, proceeds to count it as an absolute oversight as she hastily separates it from the ducks.

With the bear comes forth a deer, and Roxy trips ass over teakettle so she doesn’t get a hoof(?) in her face. It's... The brown colour is closer to orange, but Roxy still counts it as a win. The deer is followed by a kitten, the smallest fucker Roxy’s ever had the privilege of seeing, and she has to pop a handkerchief from the void and honk into it before she can move on. The kitten's also got the privilege of being an animal that Roxy is very familiar with, and it's an orange tabby. Well. She thinks it's a tabby? All those jokes she remembers about dog breeds being easier to remember than cat breeds come rushing back to her. She pushes her confusion aside as she gushes over it.

A little over a week until she’s gotta have all these critters under wraps and wrapping paper, and Roxy’s becoming an actual Disney princess. She's taken off her shoes and rolled up her pants, dipping her legs into the pond, and the ducks flock around her. Hummingbirds settle into her hood, and a chameleon she’d just made a couple minutes earlier lies on her head, enjoying the sunlight that hits it.

_Something’s missing,_ she thinks, and after some idle scrolling on her phone occasionally interrupted by Yogi Bear snoring particularly loudly (Roxy swears on god that it wasn’t healthy but google searching and emergency health measures just made her decide that this affront to god, god being her specifically, only obeys cartoon physics laws) she happens on the missing piece.

A hand held up over the ground, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in her concentration, and a squirrel appears.

“Yep.” The squirrel clambers up her arm. “Disney Princess here I go. This is definitely the highest point of my life.”

* * *

Showtime, showtime, _showtime—_ Roxy’s jittery in the last two days leading up to the big event. She spends less time with the animals, having finished up, and takes advantage of her extra sleeping time by using the energy that comes of it to help with preparations. There are banners to be made and hung, food to be planned, and cake to be baked (of course).

Seeing everyone take this event so seriously sends bucketfuls of serotonin straight to her brain. She tells Dirk this and he snorts.

“This is probably the most effort that any of us have put into something in recent years that doesn’t involve death in some way,” he says. “We’re makin’ the most of it.”

The Mayor and his Prospitian Maiden friend take to Callie well, when they’re around—the three of them haven’t got a holiday to celebrate, or at least none that they’d shared, so they’re called on by everyone else for help, flitting from place to place for suggestions and the like. When Callie comes back from an hour long discussion with the Mayor about Important Civil Duties, she’s got pen ink on her hands and smudges of it on her face.

“I’m not quite sure how this tied into Dave’s suggestion of renaming Christmas trees Troll-Christmas trees, but it was certainly enlightening,” she says, stirring batter beside Roxy. She pauses, squinting as Roxy dabs at her cheeks with a wet handkerchief.

Jane hums, almost laughing. “Oh, Karkat definitely would not have appreciated that.”

“That’s why I’m glad it was a discussion with the Mayor fellow, as the alternative would have been a prolonged argument between Karkat and Dave.”

That morning Roxy can barely sleep, too wired up with excitement. She and Calliope retire to bed early; Roxy, as the lead organizer of the event, wants to get a head start on the night to make sure everything goes smoothly (and Yogi Bear doesn’t accidentally eat Jane’s cake), and Calliope’s insistent on helping her.

Roxy does not sleep, in fact. She's sitting up straight as her spine can manage, playing a solo game of cat's cradle.

The door opens slowly, and Dirk comes in, feet silent on the floor. He stops right as he's about to close it, locking eyes with Roxy. She messes up and drops the string.

He turns and walks back out, without a word, and when he comes back inside he makes his way over to her. “Melatonin pill,” he says, offering it to her. “Think you’ll need it?”

“Yeah, thanks.” She takes it from him with no small amount of gratitude. “I’m just really excited, is all.”

“Mm.” Dirk watches her decaptchalogue a bottle of water. She voids away the remains of the bottle. “You know, I haven’t said this before, but thank you. For coming up with this.”

“All in a day’s work, Di-Stri,” she says, and winks at him, before the water goes down the wrong way and Dirk is patting her back and looking away from her, trying not to laugh.

Sleep comes easy, after that.

* * *

Evening of the celebration and Roxy's been on her feet since waking up, checking on everything and double-checking on everything. Roxy paces as Callie talks to Dad Crocker, waiting for everyone to come to the Designated Bonfire Area.

She doesn't have to wait long. Dave and Karkat are the first to arrive, followed by Rose, Kanaya, and Terezi, then Jane and everyone else.

Jake catches her eye and gives a reassuring thumbs up. Roxy blinks, then gives him a thankful thumbs up in return, grinning.

They're where they usually are, on the logs, and for a moment Roxy wonders if she should have moved them so that they're facing the buffet table. Oh, well, doesn't matter at this point, since it's already time.

Roxy steps up onto the table, and after a moment of thought, decides to float above it instead. She catches Jane looking forlornly at the spot where her feet had been moments before.

She clears her throat.

“ _Hello and welcome to the New Universe™’s first. Official. Celebration™!”_

“How’d she manage to say the trademark symbol without moving her mouth for it,” she hears John ask Jade, almost immediately. Jade shrugs, just as clueless.

There's movement from somewhere beside them but Roxy chooses to ignore it, instead looking in Dirk's general direction. He's giving her a thumbs up. Roxy idly wonders if anyone _else_ is going to give her a thumbs up.

“It is Halloween and! Twelfth Perigee’s Eve! If for some inconceivable reason you have managed to forget the exact event we’ve been preparing for this past month!” she decaptchalogues a megaphone she'd made just for this and, holding it up to her mouth, continues: “Just know that if you start up some major league fisticuffs, I _will_ manifest in front of you faster than you can say ‘oh snap’ and I will, probably, burst into tears!”

Dirk has a spontaneous coughing fit, almost doubling over as Jane pats his back. Jake looks kind of distraught at the notion. Calliope, slowly, raises her hand to pat his back, mimicking Jane. In a moment of overwhelming emotion Jake raises his own to pat her as well.

“Okay,” says Roxy, only just managing not to devolve into her own spontaneous coughing fit (her friends are INCREDIBLE), “So! Have fun!”

There’s a sudden swell of noise just outside of everyone’s view. Roxy takes a quick moment to curse dramatic irony.

“I’ll go check what that’s about,” Jade offers, and in the next second she’s teleported away.

Roxy scans the crowd as she lowers herself to the ground again. Dave and Karkat had been sitting beside John, so they might have been what caught her attention. They probably got distracted by something halfway through her short, impromptu speech, considering that they’re not here. What could’ve distracted them, though—

Jade reappears. She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again.

“Jade?” asks Rose, from behind her, “Are you all right?”

“Roxy,” says Jade, just as Rose has finished speaking, “Dave says he'd seen a turtle, and Karkat tripped over it. I saw the turtle, too," she adds, as though anyone would have doubted her.

There’s an abrupt moment of complete and utter silence. Roxy worries for a moment if her void powers had gone haywire with the sheer rush of horror the statement had elicited.

“Well!” she says, voice coming just as abrupt. She follows it up with a short mixture of a sigh and a laugh. “That was not how I had imagined this to go!”

“Imagine what to go, love?” ventures Calliope, brave as always. Feigning ignorance, the wonderful gal, as though she hadn’t known what Roxy’s been doing since the first flower made its way into her nightstand. A hydrangea, Roxy thinks it was.

Dirk looks to be muttering to himself about thinking she’d only dealt with insects. She ignores his speculation in favour of directing a megawatt smile to Callie. Jane, beside her, squints.

“Just a moment,” says Roxy, voice cheery, and just as Jade had done a minute before, she vanishes.

“All right,” a good dozen minutes of confused talk later, Roxy returns with Dave and Karkat in tow. “This was—well, it was supposed to be a _surprise,_ ” she shoots a grin in the boys’ direction, wide-eyed, “But I guess that isn’t happening!”

Jake speaks up. “What’s happening—er, well I do suppose whatever it was it’s not quite happening, anymore, but—“

Roxy snaps her fingers and with a void-assisted flourish, the animals she’d been working so hard to pull from nothingness appear in front of her friends. There’s a collective gasp. She preens.

“Halloween, Jake!” and with a wider, sharper grin at the general crowd: “ _Happy Halloween!”_

* * *

Roxy’s offered up to individual people what she’d conjured up for them, and they’ve gone off to form little cliques.

‘Kinda take what I’d thought before back,’ she thinks, watching Calliope excitedly chatter to Mr. Crocker about the frog perched atop her head. ‘ _This_ is the highest point of my life, actually.’

There’s a tap on her shoulder.

“Roxy, I have to ask,” says Rose, having waded carefully through the now insect-and-bug-filled grass, “Was there any rhyme or reason to your naming?”

“Hmm? Well, yeah!” Roxy puffs her chest out with pride. “Checked it out on ol’ reliable, Rosey! _Roxy Creavit Me_ means Roxy made me!”

“Old reliable?”

“Y’know. Google translate.”

“Ah, yes. Well. What archaic nuance does the name Voldetort hold?”

“I like it,” says Roxy, not quite lying. “That’s all the nuance it needs.”

“I see you’ve taken well to the responsibility of naming.” There’s a tone of something lofty, there, and Roxy gives an exaggerated groan.

“Don’t say it like _that,_ Rose, c’mon—I spent so long namin’ ‘em all, and besides! I know you like them!”

“They do carry a sort of charm to them,” concedes Rose. “I’ve another question to ask.”

“Ask away.”

“Is this my fault?” asks Rose, looking out at the animals. A dog takes a particular liking to John and Jake is on his knees in front of it, fawning. They watch as the dog presses its paw to Jake’s glasses. Jade is running her hands through its fur, and Roxy's brain takes a moment to connect its white fur with the white fur on her dog ears. Oh, god, she hadn't noticed that— she's lucky she gifted it to Jade. “The naming. You’ve certainly gone all out on them. I’ve seen three different names on those collars you’d given them, the scientific name, and then all your little nicknames.”

Roxy laughs. “Well, sorta,” she says, sheepishly. “I mean, I’d always kinda been fond of naming things. Y’know the carapacians? At my Earth? I’d give ‘em all sortsa silly sounding names, just for the fun of it—that’s where a lot of my creativity went, I think.”

“Right.” Rose nods. “Well, I can’t say I’m complaining, considering the good it’s done us.” A sidelong glance at Roxy, and she adds, “You’ve done particularly well in raising the morale of us veterans, believe.”

Sudden noise from where Karkat, Terezi, and Kanaya have clustered grabs their attention. Or well, really, Rose notices first because Kanaya is there, and Roxy takes notice because Terezi’s talking fast and heated. Dirk is there with them, Roxy finds, and suddenly she is tuning in. If Dirk and Terezi are getting into an argument, she’ll probably hold off on the tears on account of curiosity.

“Okay, just—listen, clearly since she is the only one of you—I’m trying to _talk,_ Karkat— well clearly she is the only one of you who actually thought about naming this planet something other than Earth fucking C, which is Alternian erasure and if I could I would take you to court for this, but anyway clearly since she is the only one who was concerned about it she should be the one to name it!”

“Terezi,” says Karkat, with all the patience of someone who is running out of it, “she literally named this one ‘tealblaster 5000.’” He gestures at the small, blue duckling perched on his shoulder.

Terezi gives an affronted scoff. “Which is an incredible name. Your point?”

“If it matters at all, I would like to correct Karkat and clarify that this one is named _Roxy Creavit Me,_ bumblebabe, _and_ tealblaster 5000.”

_“_ Oh, Rosey,” says Roxy, “Your girl’s definitely got a head for priorities and detail!”

“Ah,” says Rose, “That she—That she does—“

“While I entirely agree that Roxy is the most suited for naming the planet,” says Dirk, “and trust me, I _do,_ have you considered—“

There’s a thump from Roxy and Rose’s left, and when they both turn, Jake has been knocked flat onto his ass by the dog, who is abandoning his interest in John in favour of Jake. Jade's laughing at him.

“Oh, he’s eager!” says Roxy, feeling eager herself. She turns to Rose. “You go catch up with your girlfriend and defend my right to naming every atom on this dimension for me, I’ll go over to them!”

Rose smiles. “I’m not so sure about every atom,” she says, “But I’ll certainly support your cause.”

She and Rose part ways and by the time Roxy reaches Jake, John has wandered off and Jade has gently nudged the dog off of Jake.

Jake notices her first. “Oh, hello, Roxy!” he brushes his shirt off and beams a smile at her. “I’d been meaning to say—well, besides saying that these animals of yours sure are quite the affectionate lot, but—you’d found them on the planet, hadn’t you?”

“Aw, nah,” says Roxy, feeling a bit like she was about to tell a child that Santa Claus did not exist. Except that was ridiculous, and really, she was just telling Jake the facts that no, she hadn’t discovered all the animals, they had just popped into her hands. “I just kinda. Yanked 'em from the void. Rogue style.”

Jake blinks. “Oh, well,” he says. “I rather expected that, but it’s one thing to expect something and another to hear confirmation of it.”

“The planet’s basically a blank slate but for the plants,” says Roxy. She pauses. “Not too keen on thinkin’ about the kinda impact not havin’ any animals around to be herbivores or to, like, decompose, probably had, but y’know. Regular, run-of-the-mill, 2% Godly Antics led to these babies.” She gives the dog an appreciative pat on the head. The dog gives her hand an appreciative lick.

“I’m not too sure how to feel about the fact that you’ve skipped the whole discovery process, I’m afraid,” says Jake. “Yanking them out of the void hardly sounds like a good and proper adventure.”

“Well,” says Jade, “Technically she discovered them in her meditation, her void-pulling…”

Roxy grins and winks at her. Jade sends a bright, conspiratorial smile back.

“The travelling, though?” says Jake, “The adventure?”

Giggling, Jade straightens up to knock her fist into his shoulder. Jake gives an exaggerated _ow._

“I did some soul searching,” says Roxy, after a moment of thought. “That’s gotta count, doesn’t it?”

“ _Jade!”_ from where he had been with the Mayor and his friend, Dave waves his hand. Roxy turns to face his direction. “C’mon—and ask your junior grandpa there, too— don’t you think we should change our names to Roxy’s?”

“No _way,”_ says John, who had evidently wandered away to talk to him, “Dave, I can get behind changing my first name to Roxy, but I draw the line at getting my surname changed to Lalonde!”

“What’s wrong with Lalonde, John?” calls Rose. She grins at Kanaya, who, with a flustered laugh, pushes at her shoulder.

“I just—it’s just! C’mon, it’s the principle of the thing,” argues John, “I can do the first name change if it’s just the first name change, but if you want Lalonde then I’m going to just change my whole name to Roxy Lalonde!”

“Change our whole names to Roxy Lalonde, John, you’re a genius,” says Dave. “Not just changing our names to Roxy, no, we are legion, _Lalonde_ —yeah, this is why you’re our leader.”

Roxy isn’t following this at all, but she gets dragged into the ensuing debate anyway.

In the end, they don’t decide on changing their names to Roxy. When day comes and Roxy’s getting ready to sleep, though, she’s grateful that they’d gotten something to be happy for from her.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much to my super cool artists! alexis (swordwizard), lula, and rye have really amazing artworks for this fic and i'm gonna spend every day of my life grateful for them!!!  
> check out @theswordwizard (twitter & tumblr), @Loofahlula (IG and twitter), and @tsirann (tumblr) for them respectively!! i'll probably also edit this and leave links to their art for this once they're up!!  
> EDIT: here's their art!  
> lula's: https://twitter.com/loofahlula/status/1138945548642242561  
> swordwizard's: https://twitter.com/theswordwizard/status/1138967233172893696  
> tsirann's is coming soon!!  
> also thank u to @8eanlord (tumblr) for beta-ing for me, i tired 2 work in ur suggestions!! u were a big help thank u!!  
> i've got quite a few notes for this fic but i don't want to fill the notes too much, so if you're curious, feel free to leave a comment!


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